Meg Cabot’s greatest creation, Mia Thermopolis, would definitely write fanfiction if she were a real teenager, so it’s no surprise that Cabot herself used to dabble in fanfic.

But if you know Cabot’s work at all, you might be surprised about the fandom she wrote in: Star Wars.

In a post on her website Cabot, whose novels include The Princess Diaries, says she wrote’ fanfic as a tween, and that overall she thinks fanfiction is a good thing.

She says: “I think writing fan fiction is a good way for new writers to learn to tell a story. The good thing about writing fan fiction is that the characters and basic plot are already set up, so new writers can concentrate on dialogue, or further plot development. Basically, the author has already created a world for the new writer to play around in, and that is a great way for new writers to learn the skills they will need in order to create their OWN universe (which I hope they will do someday, because the world needs more good stories, and it would be a shame if someone who might have some decent stories of her own to tell was depriving us of them because she was spending all her time writing, for example, Star Wars fan fics. Ahem).”

But she says she would never read fanfiction based on her books, because they’re not her vision and because she’s worried that if an idea similar to that found in a fanfic ever turned up in one of her books, she could be sued.

From fan to famous: 8 authors who started out writing fanfiction